Fuccillo seeking ‘Caroline’ replacement: Is it gonna be you, SWFL?

Spend more than a few minutes watching TV or listening to the radio in Southwest Florida, and you’ve heard them.

The ads are quick, often seemingly improvised on the spot, and rarely the same exact ad twice, but they’ve all got the same common threads: Billy Fuccillo, owner of Fuccillo Kia of Cape Coral, along with a cast of characters, telling you that everything is “HUGE.”

You probably even read the catchphrase in Fuccillo’s voice.

But the car dealer in charge of an expansive lot in Cape Coral, one of 30 between Florida and New York, is seeking a replacement for his right-hand woman in many of those ads.

“That’s the style I believe in,” Fuccillo said. “If you look at most dealerships and most car companies, they’ll run the same commercial for like three weeks. We want to mix them all up, we want to run 25 or 40 commercials in the span of three weeks, and we want to get the message out there on all of our products, not just one.”

Billy Fuccillo has created a website and a casting call for what the company is calling theNext Fuccillo Celebrity.

Why Renfro is leaving isn’t quite clear, even to Fuccillo.

“I have an idea, I really don’t know for sure,” Fuccillo said, adding he’s heard everything from becoming a nun to taking a position with a European theatre group. “I think it allowed her, working with our company, to be seen. Just like with the next person I’m talking about, and the opportunity could lead to what I think ended up being a nice opportunity for Caroline as well.”

But what is clear is what the position demands. Fuccillo Automotive creates numerous ads for his various dealerships, he says they do about 180 different spots every month between TV and radio advertisements…and they’re all filmed in about a day and a half.

“They’ve got to be very good at [improvisation], be able to walk and talk without cue cards. They’ve got to be quick on their feet,” Fuccillo said. “In the beginning we were thinking about hiring an actress or someone who has been on TV before, through an agent and this and that. When you talk to those people, they think you’re going to do 2 spots a day. Not 200. 2. A lot of people can’t adjust to that.”

Since creating the website, Billy Fuccillo said about 150 applicants have submitted their names to be next. Applications will be accepted through Tuesday, after which Fuccillo and his team will narrow it down to 50 finalists. From there, finalists will be interviewed, and eventually do test ads with Fuccillo and the rest of his team – general manager Xavier Villareal and Miami-based model Gloria Ordonez.

The reason for moving so quickly,Billy Fuccillo says, is that they take two weeks in December to start working on ads for the following year — including a promotional cruise on Dec. 3.

“Not only do they have to be able to do commercials, they have to be able to talk to our customers, like on that cruise ship. It’s a fun job, but its demanding.”

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